Manfred Schotten Antiques: golf sale

Manfred Schotten Antiques are holding their “Out of Bounds” selling exhibition of golfing art and memorabilia at 109 High Street, Burford, Oxfordshire, until 11th May 2013.

The impressive selection caters both for the casual buyer looking for novelty gifts and for the serious golfiana collector. It includes games, toys, balls, clubs, gutta percha moulds, artwork and prints (including an engraving of Charles Lees’ ‘The Golfers’ featured previously in this blog), silver cigarette cases and metal wares, and ceramics.

The first great golf boom of the 1890s produced a large number of rather ingenious devices to aid home practice. The first item in the exhibition catalogue is George Bussey’s entry into this “captive golf” market – basically a gutta percha ball is attached to a peg by a sprung cord. Presented in original box with label.

A collection of 25 steel-shafted putters is offered as a single lot. They include some rather ungainly-looking implements more at home on a croquet lawn than a green. One, its head formed of a J&B Whiskey bottle, is clearly an advertisement.

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Among the more unusual items is an oil standard lamp. Cast entirely in brass in an Art Nouveau style, three elegant long-nosed clubs rest upon golf ball feet.

When J. Osmond patented his ‘Automaton Caddie’ in 1893 it spawned a host of bags incorporating legs which open to form a tripod. For the equivalent of 10p extra golfers could purchase a leather strap to swing the bag over the shoulder. This early example makes a most appropriate display stand for your vintage clubs!

Pictured is Spalding’s striking “Kro-Flite” poster. This watershed ball brought major improvements in durability to 1920s golfers, thanks to a cover of vulcanized gutta percha. Notice the mesh pattern on the two balls; this was superseded by the familiar dimples around 1936.

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